Showing posts with label Inca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inca. Show all posts

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Scrub That Sucker Clean, Baby!


Those of you old enough to remember the 1970's may remember where - that - line comes from.

The real reason we are featuring lens cleaning products is that we have so many of them and you all need them. This town is full of dirty glass, as any day at our or repair counter will attest. The wise people have dirty filters on clean lenses and the foolish people have dirty lenses, but that is another tale - today it is the question of cleaning glass.

Firstly - do not get it dirty. Use a lens caps and keep your fingers out of the lens hood -and if you are subject to environments that are dusty, brush or blow it off the glass with a blower or a soft brush. If the environment includes oil, fingerprints, dog nose prints, or fragments of egg-salad sandwich with mayonnaise, you will have to go on to the active cleaning.

Look at the head and tail images. These products are all designed to get after those heavier contaminants. You'll see three packets of dry lens tissue - soft one-use paper that can be safely wiped over glass. I would recommend that you either use a commercial eyeglass spray cleaner to wet one of these, followed by a dry wipe with a second tissue, or resort to the good old el-cheapo alternative of one drop of washing-up liquid in a glass of distilled water. Do not use drinking alcohol to wipe over the glass surface, particularly do not use Midori or Advocaat.

A packet of these dry tissues are a good partner to a couple of the Hama Feuchtreinigungstuchen. Say that late at night and see what materialises in the dark....

If you are caught out in the field, away from the washing-up liquid, he best cleaners are the Hoodman Lens Cleanse packets. They are a wet then dry combo and can remove anything organic. Highly recommended by Ernest, the fussy technician.

Last on the list are the microfibre cloths - these are available from several manufacturers, including one with our shop logo emblazoned on it. Use them to keep the small bits of oily smear at bay - they can also be washed out when they become fouled.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Power To The People - A Battery Of Chargers




Here in Australia there are only three common items to be found in every hotel and motel room - a bed, a Gideon's Bible, and the camera or i-phone charger from the last occupant.

We get calls daily from people desperate to replace lost charger. The variety of different batteries and charger blocks produced by the various manufacturers precludes having one of everything available at short notice. Indeed, some cameras have long outlived the production of their chargers.


The answer has been the Inca and the Hahnel universal chargers, They can be configured to stuff electricity into nearly all batteries - with some exceptions in the Sony range and in some of the newer Canon professional batteries. You generally just drop the AA or AAA cells into the tray or manoeuver the Li-on block onto the blades and let it go for an hour or so. We use 'em all the time here in the shop.


If you just need to do AAA's scoop a couple of the INCA chargers out of the $ 1.99 bargain bin near the door. There are 4 batteries in there as well as the charging block, and the charger doubles as an LED torch or power block for USB devices. $ 1.99 - you couldn't get a punch in the eye in a waterside pub for that price.


If you need to power something up out in the bush and you have your motor car nearby, you can put a can inverter into the drinks holder on the center console and plug in the Powertech  can-size inverter. It can put out 150W steady or 450W at a surge. it also has a USB port to power up tablets. Mind you, if you need to take a lot of tablets in the bush, it is time to slow down, watch the flowers, and smell the bees...